Adventures of a Pseudo-Homeless Man
by thebakery
Summary: An adorable, humorous fanfiction in which Peeta Mellark finds happiness by pretending to be homeless. Follow Peeta through his journey as he struggles to find his true identity while unexpectedly falling in love with the beautiful, mysterious Katniss. AU.
1. An IKEA Love Story

Chapter 1: An IKEA Love Story

Pretending to be homeless was the first time that Peeta had ever felt alive in his whole life.

As he slowly drifted off to sleep on an expensive palomino leather sofa in IKEA, he pondered his newfound life. Despite the narrowness of clothing options and inability to indiscreetly enter nice restaurants, the idea of creating a completely new identity - one that no one else knew about - deeply excited him. His life prior to becoming a pseudo-homeless man now seemed like a nightmare. If having the mind of a thirty-five year-old unemployed hipster/blogger while being stuck in the body of a seventeen year old boy wasn't bad enough, Peeta's life as an upper-class American living in the suburbs was full of problems: An endless need for more shoes, finding the balance between your blanket and electric fan at night, no wifi at McDonalds, too much dip for your chips, unlocking the wrong Prius in the parking lot, constantly forgetting to bring sunglasses...and the list goes on.

Peeta's favorite part of being a pseudo-homeless man was that look people gave him when they saw him. Even disgust and pity surpass a blank expression. An IKEA employee with a tattoo sleeve was giving just that look, a mix of revulsion and superior sympathy. Peeta pretended to sleep as he watched, through his eyelashes, Tattoo getting his supervisor and gesticulating towards Peeta. Excitement began to pound in Peeta's ears as he anticipated his grand exit of IKEA. He stroked the soft leather of the TULLSTA chair. Swedish furniture really was his first and only love.

Peeta's grand exit would have been spectacular, maybe even headline-worthy, if he had not been distracted by a lovely young woman pondering over some sheer green curtains. He was so startled by her beauty that he almost forgot where he was. Peeta's gaze followed her long black hair down to her hip, where she balanced a stack of shockingly tasteful novels. He continued to lay there for another minute, and then made his decision. While carefully watching Tattoo and his supervisor, Peeta got up and stealthily sneaked into a nearby staff room (which was surprisingly empty), where he found an IKEA vest hanging on one of the coat racks. He donned the vest and examined his face in the dusty bathroom mirror. His face was covered with a layer of grime. After rinsing it with water, he unveiled a slightly boyish face with blue eyes, a feminine but straight nose, small mouth, and wavy blonde hair. He realized that he could probably smell better, but there wasn't much he could do. He smoothed down the wrinkled vest one last time, and left the staff room.

His heart hammered in his chest as he walked up to her. She was now examining a red swivel chair. He smiled as he realized the brand was SNILLE. Excellent choice, he thought.

"Excuse me, miss," he said as he flashed his radiant smile. "Are you remodeling your home? This floor lamp would go quite well with that chair you're looking at." He held up a decorative black STOCKHOLM lamp.

She pushed him aside with a perfunctory "No, thank you," continuing her steady examination of three very similar office chairs.

Peeta persisted.

"What are you looking for? Can I help you?" Peeta asked in a slightly threatening voice.

Still not looking over at him, the woman let irritation creep into her voice.

"I'm really alright," she snapped as she glanced over at him. "Hey!" She hesitated. "You're that homeless guy who got kicked out of Lucky's Vintage Power Emporium! What the hell?"

* * *

The woman shoveled the cake into her mouth as she mentally made a joke about needing to assemble the layered chocolate IKEA dessert. It was one of those days where you wish your neck were shorter so you could get the food into your face faster. A red-haired middle-aged mother and father swung their tiny red haired boy by the hands, narrowly missing the cart of used plates. All three of them laughed, and the mother pinched the boy's nose.

The woman abruptly realized why Marcus had broken up with her so suddenly that morning. IKEA, she thought, was a place for serious couples. When she wanted to take that next step in their relationship, to redo their bathroom, he chickened out. In fact, now that she thought of it, he had started acting distant immediately after she began putting up glossy magazine pictures of claw-foot tubbed dream bathrooms on the refrigerator door. Well, she pondered wistfully, at least IKEA was also a city of unhappy fighting couples. She saw at least three very un-smitten pairs within a 9 meter radius, staring at the floor stonily. This cheered her up considerably.

She polished off the last of the cake and pushed the plate away from her. Picking up her purse, she wandered away from the table without pushing her chair in. Feeling quite sorry for herself, she began to plan her future dream home. She decided on an off-white sofa, maroon carpeting, and black cabinets for the living room. She even picked up a lovely set of cardboard classic novels to add a little sophistication to the room.

About half an hour later, she was struggling to decide on an office chair for her study when out of the corner of her eye she noticed an IKEA employee walking toward her. He attempted to sell her something, but without looking up she politely refused. After he continued to pester her, she became annoyed and glanced at him. He was wearing torn corduroy pants, an old flannel shirt, and the usual yellow IKEA vest with a badge that read, precisely:

_Hello, my name is: David_

She then looked up at his face. She frowned. He looked awfully familiar.

"Hey! You're that homeless guy who got kicked out of Lucky's Vintage Power Emporium! What the hell?"

He hesitated, before replying, "I'm sorry, I think you're mistaken. I've been working at IKEA for - "

She cut him off, mid-sentence, squinting at his badge. "Your name isn't even David, is it?"

"So? Neither is yours, Katniss. Nice to meet you. I'm Peeta." He held out his hand.

"My name isn't Katniss, it's Tessa!" she snapped, ignoring his gesture. The corner of his mouth twitched. The woman felt slightly uncomfortable. Her name actually _was_ Katniss, Tessa was actually her dog's name. She didn't give her name to strangers on principle. But how had he known her name?

The truth was he hadn't known at all. Peeta merely thought, falsely we might add, he was making a clever joke that would hopefully cause an accidental slip of her name and maybe impress her slightly.

And the correct guess of a name, readers, is only the first of many eerie and rather uncanny coincidences.


	2. A Series of Mistakes

Chapter 2: A Series of Mistakes

That didn't go nearly as badly as I thought it would, thought Peeta as he walked out of IKEA holding a small piece of paper with a cell phone number on it. But why would Katniss ever give her number to a pseudo-IKEA employee/pseudo-homeless man? The answer is that she didn't. As he demonstrated in the previous chapter, Peeta is an extremely observant and devious young man. While he and the woman were conversing, Peeta spotted a slightly crumpled piece of paper sticking out from her bag with this neatly written information on it:

Tessa- (781) 566-8992

Taking advantage of her confusion about his eerily correct guess, Peeta quickly memorized the phone number, later writing it down on a scrap of paper. Little did he know, that phone number did not belong to the woman - it belonged to the veterinarian whom she planned to call for her dog. Poor Tessa had become violently ill from licking the chocolate wrappers that were left on the floor following Katniss's break-up with Marcus.

Sighing as she opened the door, Katniss took in the chaotic jumble of books, trash, and underwear strewed across the floor. She bent over to pick up some laundry to toss in the washing machine when she came across a photo in a cheap faux gold frame. It was Marcus holding Tessa as a puppy over his head, like the scene in the Lion King. She pretended that she didn't mind seeing the picture of Marcus.

Katniss abruptly remembered she needed to call that veterinarian for Tessa. She groped in her bag for the slip of paper, while at the same time opening up her laptop to start some work. Katniss gave up her search and just looked up local veterinarians on her favorite search engine, AltaVista. She clicked on the first link and called the number while finishing up the last quarter's earnings report. Readers, you may be interested to know that young Katniss Everdeen was the youngest Vice President of Finance (in a company employing more than 1000 employees) ever. She had even been featured in Forbes' list of most powerful young people under 30 last month. Katniss sailed solo from San Francisco to Hawaii and back in a boat she had engineered herself when she was 9th grade. She was also an avid free form mountain climber. Ms. Everdeen had also been a Swedish, Hebrew and Arabic translator for the UN as a summer job in college. She is kind of a big deal, readers.

After successfully scheduling an appointment with a veterinarian (the only accomplishment in this entire chapter), Katniss realized she would be late for night school. Despite the vastness of her knowledge and skills, Katniss was one of those people who are just never satisfied with themselves. As she broke several driving laws while rushing to class, she thought about what excuse she would use to explain her lateness to her professor, Dr. Abernathy.

To be honest, Dr. Abernathy was usually a carefree, whimsical man. People would even go as far as to say that he was happy at times. But at work, he was a whole new person. Every morning, as he pulled on his deceivingly professional sweater vest, he transformed into an evil, bitter teacher. He took pleasure in forcing his students to clean his desks and whiteboards. He lured the unsuspecting pupils with bags of candy, and masked these activities by calling them "simulations". Only when he came home did his bitter scowl leave his face. And he repeated this every single weekday - going to work to hand out unreasonable pop quizzes, and returning home to play with his pet hamster.

After much deliberation, Katniss decided to tell Dr. Abernathy that she made the mistake of letting in some Jehovah's Witnesses who wouldn't leave. This of course, did not satisfy Dr. Abernathy and he gave her 25 hours of chalkboard eraser clapping. Dr. Abernathy did not even own a chalkboard. He was just that evil. Katniss set to start her first hour of clapping imaginary chalkboard erasers as the other students began another dreadful simulation involving cheap candy and penguin noises. After she had finished with the first imaginary eraser, Katniss grabbed the next eraser off of Dr. A's desk. A cloud of imaginary dust was unleashed into the air. Coughing, Katniss wiped the chalk dust off her new black slacks. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a gaudy, cheap-looking gold frame on the desk. Glancing casually at the frame, she saw a familiar face. _Peeta?_

* * *

Lately, Peeta had been thinking a lot about his family. As he sat on a wooden bench under a shady tree at a deserted park, he tried to imagine what each of the members of his family was doing right at that moment. To his own surprise, he started to feel a little homesick. He wondered if his mother even knew he was gone.

"Snap out of it," he told himself sternly. But he couldn't stop himself from walking over to the nearest pay phone.

After dialing the number, he waited for three rings until the other line picked up. "Hey," he started nervously. "Hey Dad, it's me. It's Peeta." His voice cracked slightly.

"_Peeta?_" a female voice said incredulously.

"Oh, hi Katniss," said Peeta, with a forced nonchalance. His insides were jumping up and down. "Can you tell Dr. A that I called? Tell him it's his son."

"Oh, yeah. Sure. Um, nice to talk to you again," Peeta heard the harsh dialtone.

Rejected by both his father and a woman that he thought was his love, Peeta bought a gyro. An old man with quivering hands gave him his gyro in a wrapper that said "Outdoor Gyro House Organics". Peeta had something in his eye. It irritated him. Note reader, that Peeta was DEFINITELY not crying. That was when birds proceeded to eat his gyro straight out of his hand. _This is the problem with the city,_ thought Peeta. _The birds are too damn comfortable around humans. _He looked at the gyro, artistically splattered on the ground as birds devoured the rest of it. A girl holding her mother's hands laughed at him.

"Mommy, that man is crying" the girl said as her mother pulled her along and tried to shush her. "And he spilt his food all over the ground. He is just like Tommy! A baby! A baby! A baby! A baby! Mommy, that man is a baby!"

This, readers, did not improve Peeta's mood at all. So he did what most sane men do in his situation; he decided to shoplift.


	3. A Deadly Encounter

Chapter 3: A Deadly Encounter

It was now two o'clock in the afternoon. Peeta walked away from the mall carrying three new items: A plastic wristband, an ugly blue baseball cap, and a bouquet of flowers. None of these items were valuable or even somewhat useful. Or so he thought.

Although Peeta's urge to shoplift soon subsided, he started to feel something else - something that had been building up for a long time: loneliness. He spent the rest of his day people-watching and entering hair and manicure salons (many of which did not uphold their promise of "walk-ins welcome") and trying to relieve that gnawing feeling of desolation that grew more painful every second. But no matter what he did, he couldn't make it go away.

Peeta decided to spend the night in an old car he found in an abandoned parking lot, which turned out to be a very, very bad decision. You see, the only reason why Peeta is still alive today is because of the three seemingly worthless items that he shoplifted earlier that day.

It all started when Peeta heard a loud knock on the car window, waking him from his sleep. He opened his eyes to see a ragged-looking old man wearing a tattered raincoat attempting to peer into the front windshield in the darkness. It was a homeless man. A real homeless man. Peeta was astonished. You'd think that this pseudo-homeless man would have run into a real homeless man by now, but this was Peeta's first encounter.

Peeta rolled down the window by the driver's seat and called out, "Hey there, brother!". He hoped it was normal for homeless men to call each other "brother". Feeling generous, he added, "Are you looking for a place to spend the night? There's just enough space in this old car for the two of us!"

The man gave him a toothy smile, opened the passenger door, and made himself at home in the back of the car. Peeta dozed off in the front.

_"Hello, beautiful," drawled Peeta._

_The stunning olive-skinned woman smiled back at him. Her long, silky black hair caught his eye as it gleamed in the sun. He set his picnic basket down and laid beside her in the grassy meadow and she shifted so that she faced him fully, lying on her side. As she leaned in, he could felt her warm breath on his cheek and he closed his eyes. He moved closer and she gently put her hands around his neck, then slowly increased the pressure._

_It started to become painful, so Peeta opened his eyes._

_"Babe?" She didn't stop._

_"Darling, stop! You're hurting me!" She grinned and gripped his throat more tightly. Struggling to catch his breath, he clawed at the hands around his neck frantically-_

"Give...me the... money," a man's voice rasped into his ear. "If you scream, I'll slit your throat," the man said, flicking out a 6 inch blade.

Out of pure fear and horror, Peeta impulsively screamed. Fortunately, while sleeping, the blue baseball cap had fallen off his head onto his face. It was surprisingly velvety and thick, muffling Peeta's cry to a faint choking sound. Silently, Peeta reached in his back pocket for his wallet. He carefully removed his ID and handed the scruffily dressed man his wallet. He now noticed that this man happened to be his 10th grade chemistry teacher.

"Mr. Snow?" Peeta mumbled to himself. He couldn't think of anything appropriate to say to his former teacher.

"You still teaching?"

Mr. Snow looked up, startled and dropped the wallet. It landed in a shallow puddle of water by the car. He walked away, in slow, uneven steps. Peeta filled with embarrassment that his teacher saw him pretending to be homeless in an abandoned car. He wished he had picked a classier car for the night.

He plucked his wallet out of the puddle of water, shaking off any loose droplets. He then quickly snapped off the bottom of the flower stems in his freshly stolen bouquet, and placed the open ends of the stems on the wallet. Due to the polarity of water and osmosis, the stems promptly took in all the water.

Peeta brushed off his hands in a theatrical manner. "Unlike humanity, science never fails," he said, triumphantly.


	4. Confession Over Coffee

**Yes, two chapters! If you want me to continue with this story, please please please review. Feel free to send me suggestions. I also appreciate PMs. Shout out to Nameless Forest, whose PM motivated me to finish this chapter early.**

Chapter 4: Confession Over Coffee

Peeta slept soundly for the rest of the night. When he awoke the next morning, he felt surprisingly rejuvenated, even more so than he normally felt when he woke up from a restful night of sleep back at home.

He stretched out his body and yawned, and a forgotten scrap of paper fluttered to the carpeted floor of the car. Peeta leaned down to pick it up and his eyes lit up when he realized that it was the phone number he stole from the beautiful woman at IKEA.

"Today's the day," he said, smiling to himself.

* * *

Ten minutes later, he found himself at a payphone once again, rummaging for loose change in his pockets. Once he managed to gather enough coins, he nervously dialed the phone number and waited for an answer.

"Hello?" A gruff, masculine voice answered. Peeta frowned, wondering if he had dialed the wrong number. Before he was able to reach into his pocket to verify, he heard something on the other end of the phone that caused him to freeze.

In the background of the phone call, he could hear a very familiar female voice shouting frantically, "Tessa! Tess, stop it! Dr. Plutarch is only trying to help!" Peeta's eyes widened when he realized who the voice belonged to.

"Is Tessa there?" Peeta blurted into the phone, without thinking.

There was a moment of silence. He heard faint whispering.

Suddenly, he heard the woman speak angrily into the phone. "Marcus? I know it's you. We've been over this before. We're over. And that also includes Tessa. So you just need to leave us alone-"

Wait, who's Tessa?

He cut her off, mid-sentence. "Hey, hey. Stop. It's Peeta. You know, from IKEA?"

Silence again.

"First of all, how the hell did you get my veterinarian's number? Secondly, what do you want with my dog? This is really fucking weird. Who are you?"

Peeta hesitated. "I'm just a guy looking for a beautiful woman I met at a home improvement store. Who are you?"

He heard a masculine voice in the background say, "Katniss, who is it?"

"No one, no one!" Peeta heard her reply. She then whispered into the phone, "Hey, if this is about the chair I didn't pay for, I'm really really sorry, I didn't mean to shoplift... I've just been having a lot of issues lately and I…. Look, can we get this sorted out later? I'm at an appointment at the moment, but we can talk at 3, if thats okay with you?"

Dumbfounded by her response, Peeta opened his mouth but was unable to form any words.

"Is 3 okay?" the woman whispered, frantically. "Meet me at the coffee shop on the corner of 5th and Oak Street."

Peeta quickly regained his composure. "Sounds good, Katniss." Hearing himself say her name felt strangely satisfying.

"Again, I'm really really sorry! I didn't mean it! I'll see you soon!" Katniss then hung up.

Not once did Peeta stop smiling as he walked over to the coffee shop.

* * *

"Alright Katniss, Tessa is good to go!" Dr. Plutarch rubbed Tessa's back.

"Thank you so much, Doctor, I don't know what got into me that I left all of those chocolate wrappers lying on the floor." She then looked at Tessa sorrowfully. "It won't happen again, buddy, I promise."

After driving Tessa home, Katniss realized she needed to leave again for her meeting with Peeta, the guy from IKEA.

"Peeta, the guy from IKEA. Hey, that rhymes," she murmured to herself while re-braiding her hair. Although she was only meeting with a furniture store employee, Katniss was unable to deny that Peeta was an attractive man whom she secretly wanted to impress. Besides, she needed to look good so that she could more easily coerce him into letting her go on the whole shoplifting thing.

When she arrived at the coffee shop, she founding him sitting at a small table next to the window. From afar, he looked awfully disheveled for an IKEA employee. Instead of the blue vest she saw him wearing earlier, he was dressed in a tattered brown raincoat and jeans.

"Peeta!" she called out to him. He looked up. It was then that she noticed that the sunlight had a dazzling effect on his golden hair. His impossibly blue eyes brightened when he saw her. She sat down in the seat across from him.

"Katniss," he said, smiling. "So nice to see you again. You look gorgeous, by the way."

She blushed and nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I, uh- th-thank you,

she stuttered. Katniss mentally scolding herself for being so affected by a furniture store employee.

"I got you a vanilla latte, and a blueberry scone," Peeta said, handing them to her. "You seemed like a vanilla latte type of girl, but if you, uh, if you wanted something else just let me know." His hands trembled slightly as he handed her the food.

"Oh, no, you shouldn't have! Now I'm even more indebted to you…" Katniss looked down at her drink worriedly.

"Oh, you mean the chair thing? Hey, can I be honest with you for a second?"

Oh god. I'm going to jail, Katniss thought.

"I don't care that you stole a chair from IKEA. I don't even work there." Peeta looked at her, attempting to gauge her reaction.

Katniss was shocked. "Wait, if you're not from IKEA then why did you call me?"

Peeta stared at her silently for a good ten seconds, leaning back in his chair, then looked away. "I called you because I wanted to ask you something."

"What did you want to ask me?" Katniss said, leaning forward.

"You have to promise me that you won't say no. At least not immediately."

How bad could it be? Katniss thought. "Fine. What is it?" she asked, impatiently.

"Have dinner with me," he said quietly. "Please," he added.

Katniss's eyes widened. "I'm sorry, I just got out of a relationship, I can't-"

"Look, we're already having coffee. Please have dinner with me. Just once. If you hate it, I promise that I will never try to talk to you again," Peeta pleaded.

Katniss let out a long sigh. "You know what? Fine. But you'll have to wear something nicer than… that." She gestured toward his clothing.

Peeta blushed and stammered, "I promise I will.. I'm really sorry, this isn't what I normally wear-"

"Yeah, whatever," Katniss cut him off, putting him out of his misery. "Where are we having dinner?"

Peeta thought for a moment. "I know just the place. Meet me outside this coffee shop tonight at 7." He flashed her an achingly gorgeous smile, and added, "Don't be late."


End file.
